While the first phase of DC Entertainment’s Justice League plans don’t truly begin until after Zack Snyder’s Superman reboot The Man of Steel releases, fans are already chomping at the bit to know how the DC superhero team-up movie might play out. We’ve seen several different rumors pop up over the course of the month – including a discussion about whether or not Joseph Gordon-Levitt should assume the Batman role – but the most intriguing has been DC’s reported courting of Ben Affleck to direct Justice League.

Unfortunately, though, those rumors about Affleck directing weren’t true – he was never planning on the directing the film, and news of him doing so were purely rumor-filled gossip. That same rumor mill is now churning with word that several other high-profile directors are in the running for the Justice League director’s chair. Read on to find out who.

In an interview with 24 Hours Vancouver, Affleck confirmed he is not set to helm The Justice League, but says it sounds “really exciting”:

“I’m not working on the Justice League. One of the problems with entertainment web sites is that they need to fill pages, and that’s how rumours get started…Justice League sounds really exciting, but it’s not something I’m working on.”

Like Marvel’s Avengers, it appeared that DC was looking for a proven director to assume control over what should be a very prized property. Affleck’s connections to the role of Superman in the biopic Hollywoodland were only slight, but his skills as a director were nothing to scoff at, and his newest film, Argo, looks to be a serious awards season contender. That’s all to say: it’s something of shame that this rumor didn’t pan out.

Dreams of Christopher Nolan (who has numerous times said he is uninterested), Guillermo Del Toro, or Brad Bird directing the film have already begun to manafest, but for now we know as much as fans do, which is pretty little. During the Warner Bros. panel at Comic-Con, Man of Steel director Zack Snyder suggested that the success of his superhero film would determine the future of more DC Comics properties, saying that after they get Superman’s “house in order” anything is possible.

And as it stands with Justice League, some of those ‘possibilities’ for a director are apparently more likely than others…